Quite a run, and the 24 hour volume on MtGox is nothing to sneeze at either. This is going to make it harder for me to invest in more bitcoin. Must...Suppress....Price! Minions, go!

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Do you think taking out the gambling aspect (e.g. Bitcoinica) has to do with the soaring prices?

BINGO!

Bitcoinica if it was done well, and worked as was intended would have been a nice stabilizing factor in the bitcoin world..

But it wasnt.. clearly, and all it was, was an indicator and a tool to be abused, and abused it was.... heavily, suppressing the price artificially, and having mad mad mad algorithm failures, which in turn caused mass panic selling.

I for one am thankful its toast.. but I feel for all the people waiting on coins that Bitcoinica has stolen. Yes.. I said STOLEN..

Do you think taking out the gambling aspect (e.g. Bitcoinica) has to do with the soaring prices?

Bitcoin allowed "gambling" in both directions - you could leverage long or leverage short. Removing Bitcoinica doesn't necessarily put upward pressure on anything. In fact, if more people were leveraged long on Bitcoinica then removing it would actually depress the price.

Do you think taking out the gambling aspect (e.g. Bitcoinica) has to do with the soaring prices?

I think the lack of Bitcoinica is relevant.

I don't know if that's because aggressive shorting on margin was suppressing the "true" price, or because the ability to short at all was keeping bullish sentiment from running up another bubble.

If there was a functional futures exchange (i.e. with market makers and fiat deposits/withdrawls), maybe I'd feel better about it.

If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the culture of naive fools and conmen, the former convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and the latter arriving by the busload to devour them.

Do you think taking out the gambling aspect (e.g. Bitcoinica) has to do with the soaring prices?

BINGO!

Bitcoinica if it was done well, and worked as was intended would have been a nice stabilizing factor in the bitcoin world..

But it wasnt.. clearly, and all it was, was an indicator and a tool to be abused, and abused it was.... heavily, suppressing the price artificially, and having mad mad mad algorithm failures, which in turn caused mass panic selling.

I for one am thankful its toast.. but I feel for all the people waiting on coins that Bitcoinica has stolen. Yes.. I said STOLEN..

Right, because a bucket shop was going to suppress the value of the best money ever created.

Play Bitcoin Poker at sealswithclubs.eu. We're active and open to everyone.

I don't see how Bitcoinica would have any effect one way or the other except in short time spans. And I don't see how it would be biased in either the up or down direction. Bitcoin just made leveraged trading in either direction easy. If you think the price is too high right now…sell some bitcoins! You don't need Bitcoinica to short Bitcoin.

Right now, a person can only act on what they think is an overly high BTC price if they've already bought in to that extent. Similarly, a "true believer" in Bitcoin can only act on a low price if they have fiat lying around.

Futures or options contracts - or, alternatively, margin trading at a 1:1 ratio - counteract that, and let people who weren't confident to begin with act on the market when it starts to act (in their eyes) irrationally.

That's the theory, anyway. Margin trading at a higher ratio (such as the ones Bitcoinica allowed) could also allow people to just make very unwise bets and swing the market around even more irrationally than normal.

If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the culture of naive fools and conmen, the former convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and the latter arriving by the busload to devour them.

Right now, a person can only act on what they think is an overly high BTC price if they've already bought in to that extent. Similarly, a "true believer" in Bitcoin can only act on a low price if they have fiat lying around.

Futures or options contracts - or, alternatively, margin trading at a 1:1 ratio - counteract that, and let people who weren't confident to begin with act on the market when it starts to act (in their eyes) irrationally.

That's the theory, anyway. Margin trading at a higher ratio (such as the ones Bitcoinica allowed) could also allow people to just make very unwise bets and swing the market around even more irrationally than normal.

I actually think the price is skyrocketing because people are buying BFL stuff with cash-thus converting into btc via bitpay and providing an artificially high demand for BTC at the moment.

Maybe. But BFL takes their payment denominated in USD... so wouldn't BFL itself just immediately re-sell the BTC they received from BFL's customers?

If it's BitPay volume, why hasn't the price receded in the week+ since this rally began?

If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the culture of naive fools and conmen, the former convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and the latter arriving by the busload to devour them.

I actually think the price is skyrocketing because people are buying BFL stuff with cash-thus converting into btc via bitpay and providing an artificially high demand for BTC at the moment.

You are mistaken:

In order for BitPay to pay BFL with dollars they need to sell all those bitcoins and you're right where you were at the beginning and maybe even lower since not all who used BTC needed to buy them first.

I actually think the price is skyrocketing because people are buying BFL stuff with cash-thus converting into btc via bitpay and providing an artificially high demand for BTC at the moment.

You are mistaken:

In order for BitPay to pay BFL with dollars they need to sell all those bitcoins and you're right where you were at the beginning and maybe even lower since not all who used BTC needed to buy them first.

That is one way it could happen but that is not what we think is really happening......

Since Bit-Pay is announcing that they have a large amount of coins to sell (optionally outside of the exchanges) and that they came from BFL, Bit-Pay probably has paid BFL as normal in USD and is now long that much more bitcoin.

If this is true... Bit-pay has been on the right side of a WINNING BET! They (on paper) may have made over $20,000 if they had over 10,000 BTC long due to BFL.